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Andrew Fraknoi is an astronomy professor at Foothill College and the 2007 California Professor of the Year awarded by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Fraknoi also won the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's 2007 Richard H. Emmons award, the American Institute of Physics's 2007 Andrew Gemant Award, and the American Astronomical Society's 1994 Annenberg Foundation Award
Fraknoi served as the Executive Director of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific from 1978 to 1992, edited its popular-level magazine, Mercury, and founded its newsletter for teachers, called The Universe in the Classroom. He was the founder and director of a program called "Project ASTRO," which sets up partnerships between volunteer astronomers and 4th - 9th grade teachers; each astronomer "adopts" one classroom for a year, visiting at least four times and working with the teacher to do hands-on activities in astronomy. The program is still operating in 12 sites around the country. Later he founded and directed "Family ASTRO" -- a project to design activities, kits and games to help families share the excitement of astronomical discovery. Fraknoi now works at the Society as Senior Educator, and edited an on-line column for its members, called "Astronomy Beat". Every three years, he has organized a national symposium for the Society called "Cosmos in the Classroom," which brings together 150 to 200 instructors of introductory college astronomy courses to learn and talk about how such courses can be made even more effective.
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